Abstract:

The practice of having government sharing powers and responsibilities with local school communities in the provision and administration of education is world-wide. Generally this is termed decentralisation. Decentralisation is necessary and desirable to the extent that it promotes and strengthens democracy and civic responsibility. Through it, citizens have greater scope for participating in their governance and development. Furthermore, decentralisation helps in minimising bureaucracy by reducing levels of decision making ad thereby achieving greater efficiency of operations. However, Power (1980) warns that decentralisation is sometimes unfairly used by higher organs within systems as a strategy of dumping problems. However this misgiving by Power (1980), cannot be said to be good reason enough to discourage decentralisation.